Spirit of the age. [volume] (Woodstock, Vt.) 1845-1913, 1887-03-02
COTTON SEED OIL,
An Industry Which Has
Spread Rapidly in the South.
Various Useful Products Extracted From
An Article Once Thrown Away,

In every bale of cotton there are 1000
pounds of seed and 500 pounds of lint
As about two acres of land are required
to raise a bale of cotton, one acre will
produce about 500 pounds of cotton seed
which brings the planter $40 per ton or
So. 50 per acre. A ton of seed yields 7G
gallons of oil, which sells for about 30
cents per gallon. 1t also yields about 20
pounds of short staple lint, useful for
making cotton batting, etc. Besides
there is the meal, formerly considered
valuable only to mix with other food for
cattle, but which is now returned to the
soil in the shape of fertilizer.
The gossypium is Il fertilizer especial
ly adapted to the needs of cotton, and
its principal ingredient is cotton-seed
meal, or the pulverized cake from which
cotton seed oil has been expressed. AS
the gossypium factory is dependent upon
the oil mill for material, and the latter
finds in the fertilizer works ready
market for its largest product, the two
are often found closely connected and
governed by mutual interests.
The cotton seed upon entering the
mill first passes through the 'linters"--
delicate machines which remove from
each separate seed every particle of its
feecy covering which has escaped the
crudcr process of the cotton gin. From
the Inter it goes into the hullcr where
its hull or shell is split open and torn off.
The meat is then boiled in huge cal
drons, during which operation it gives
out rich, unctous odor, suggestive of
culinary operations on a large scale, but
not at all unpleasant. The boiled seed,
cncascd III small coarse bags, then
goes to "press." Twenty bags filled
with the wcll-cookcd mass are thrust into
as many rcccpaclcs of an immensely
powerful stcam-press. Power is applied
gradually, but with terribly relentless
energy, until the oil, flowing out in
steady streams, and finding its way to
the receiving tanks below, has been cn-
tircly expressed from the several bags,
and each contains merely a hard, dry
cake. From these cakes the sacking
covering is stripped, to be used again,
and they are thrust into the jaws Of q
rapidly revolving mill that instantly re-
duces them to meal, which goes to the
fertilizer factory across the way.
The Atlanta cotton-sccd oil mill pro-
duces 10, 900 barrels of oil and 1000 tons
of meal annually. 1t is possible to SC
refine this oil as to produce tastclcss,
odorlcss and colorlcss liquid, and its
sphere Of usefulness is being daily cx.
tended. 1t is largely used in adultcra-
tions, and it is stated upon good author.
ity that one fourth of all the lard used in
this country is cotton-sccd oil.
In this Atlanta mill nothing is wasted
even the hulls of the cotton seed arc
utilized as fuel beneath the boilers o
its jO-horsc-power engine. Not only
do these hulls furnish fuel for this mill,
but half of them forced through 600 feet
of pncumatis pipe, reach the adjacent
"gossypium' works, and there form the
only fuel used to heat its boilers. Be-
sides cotton-sced meal, the ingredient:
of the "gossypium phospho" are sui
phurc acid, which is manufactured OF
the premises rom sulphur imported by
the shipload from Sicily, muriatc o.
potash, which comes from German
mines, nitrate of soda, from Peru, SUI
phate of ammonia, from Chicago, and
phosphatcs, which are dug on the S one
River near Charleston, South Carolina
In 1876 the cottOn-sccd oil mills were
only paying the planters about eight
cents per bushel for seed, as there was
no market for the meal, and depending
upon the oil alone for a profit, they
could afford no more. Now they pay
from sixteen to eighteen cents pei
bushcl for the seed. The fertilizer
produced from it can be bought fol
$32 per ton, and ton is sufficient fol-
about ten acres. The result OF its use is
to double the yielding capacity of the
SOIL so that the entire cost of the fcrtili.
ger is now betrayed by the cotton seed,
which was formerly an almost waste
product, and the extra yield of lint may
be considered as just so much clcal
profit Harper's Weekly.
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